Tasos Christidis

As anything sold, quality is the first and most important factor for its success on the market (price is the second most important thing, but we will not deal with it, in this post). During my engagement with the Software as a Service business I have found out that Quality is an issue that needs to be redefined in that context. I started thinking about this, driven by the fact that “traditional” software “virtues” are not enough to build a sustainable SaaS income. By the term “traditional” I mean all the usual quality elements or performance indicators that the buyer expects from any kind of software (SaaS or not-SaaS): To be error-free To be fast and reliable To be user-friendly To be adequately supported by its vendor To provide insight to the data that it keeps (and not just to… keep them)

In an older post, I explored the impact of SaaS in the Outsourcing business (see here:   SaaS and the outsourcing function ) and the benefits that any outsourcing company and its customers would   enjoy from the adoption of SaaS. In this post I shall explore the benefits that the Cloud computing/SaaS can have in another area: that of the Franchise business. In a Franchising model there is the part of the Franchisor (the company that offers the franchise product) and the franchisee (the companies that reside “below the umbrella” of the franchisor and reach out to the final customer). In any franchise “package” a number of products and services is offered to the franchisee in order to start and maintain a viable business; typically, this includes stock replenishment for the franchisor’s products, training, sales support etc. In some cases, the franchisor also offers the necessary software to run the franchisee business. And this is the issue that we are interested in, tod...